INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES Working Paper Series No. 242 PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN IN INDIA Ranjit Dwivedi March 1997 Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the author: c/o Publications Office - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The NetherlandsThe Institute of Social Studies is Europe's longest-established centre of higher education and research in development studies, Post-graduate teaching programmes range from six-week diploma courses to the PhD programme. Research at the ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of the Institute is disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes the research of staff and visiting fellows, and outstanding research papers by graduate students. For a list of available Working Papers and how to order them see the back of this Working Paper For further information contact: Publications Office - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The Netherlands - FAX: +31 70 4260799 e-mail publica ion_dept@iss.nl (Attn: Publications Assistant)PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN IN INDIA. Abstra science research particularly social movement studies tend to consider the discourse of these forces as emancipatory. This paper analyses the making and politics of a people's movement in India, It traces the evolution of the movement from a NGO-led campaign for better rehabilitation to a social movement Social movements, activist groups and NGOs arc major players in environmental politics. Sociat articulating interests and values of human rights, environment and alternative development. It critically analyses some of the practices and thinking within the movement and concludes that they severely limit its ‘emancipatory potential, ‘In your (researcher's) ruthless pursuit of objectivity you fail 10 understand the imperatives of a social movement. Himanshu Thakar Narmada Bachao Andofan (personal communication) “The correct method lies in dialogue. The conviction of the oppressed that they must fight for their liberation is not a gift bestowed by the revolutionary leadership, but the result of their own conscientization. Paulo Freire (1972) 1.1 Introduction ‘This paper analyses the protest over the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) in Gujarat, western India, specifically focusing on the politics of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement, hereafter NBA or the Andolan), Although, the Andolan is characterised as the epitome of the environmental movement in India (see Shiva and Bandopadhya 1989, Gadgil and Guha 1995), a comprehensive profile of it has not been drawn up. This paper is a step towards filling this empirical gap. Additionally, the paper stakes claim at levying a critical gaze on the operations and ideologies of the ‘new’ agents of social transformation - agents who construct, articulate and represent the discourse on alternative development, through forms of political practice that itself is considered ‘new’, Much of the current literature on the environmental movement in India, whether considering it along with other social movements (Omvedt 1993, Sethi 1993, Seth 1983, Kothari 1984) or by itself (Gadgil and Guha 1995, Shiva and Bandopadhya 1989), sees it as reflecting a disenchantment with state-led development strategies in general, and development projects in particular, as well as creating political space for alternatives to the dominant development paradigm (Wignaraja 1993, Escobar 1992, Kothari 1990, Parajuli 1991), The NBA is a major player in Indian ecological politics and studying it enables us to explore the problems and prospects of new/alternative politics and to empirically situate the construction sites of alternative development discourse.‘A second claim in the paper is related to the methods of ai lysing the new political actors, In social movement studies, that there is no one way of looking at these actors; moreover, the received wisdom on ‘movements reveal a certain hesitancy in approaching ‘ongoing’ social movements. Viewed positively, there is ample flesibility in devising methods of analyses that can adequately handle one’s research objectives, This paper claims no methodological innovativeness. It attempts to recast some “tried and tested’ methods in social movement studies by drawing upon tools and insights on network and discourse analyses. The methodological orientation rests on three simple premises, which in a sense, influence the paper's structure: (a) social ‘movements are movements in time and not static entities; hence the need to view them as temporal processes (Das 1996:1511); (b) the valorisation of the transformation potential of *new” agents tends 0 gloss over internal tensions and contradictions besieging social movements thereby hindering rather than fostering reflexivity; and derivatively (c) actors in ecological politics need to be characterised not through an a priori attribution of consciousness and cognition (thereby clevating them as historical projects) but through an interpretative understanding of their social practices and ideological formulations. ‘The paper consists of five sections. The first section takes a cursory glance at some conceptual issues related to environmental movements and elaborates on some methodological preferences and orientation, The second section is a narrative account of social movement formation, focusing on the temporal process through which a mobilising campaign evolves into a social movement. The third section delves into the internal dynamics of the Andolan and looks into issues of leadership, social capital accumulation and strategy. The fourth section delineates the Andolan’s ideological formulations and characterises its mobilising discourse in terms of its transformatory (emancipatory) potential. Some concluding remarks are made in the final section. 1.2 Study 1g Social Movements: Some conceptual issues It is difficult to find a consensual definition of social movements. Different forms of collective action ranging from local vigils at one end of the spectrum to international revolutions at the other in various historical contexts have all been called social movements. The definition varies from time to time depending ‘upon the nature of the collective action under study. As Diani and Eyerman (1992) argue, the concept of social movement has served primarily as an evocative label, identifying a series of empirical phenomena, which could perhaps be as easily analysed under the rubric of social conflict, collective action or political protest. Despite such indeterminate applications of the concept, one can in a minimalist sense define social movements as forms of collective action that are: (a) based on and express social and other conflicts (Lindberg 1995, Gadgil and Guha 1995); (b) based on large mobilisations (Cohen 1985); (c) anti-systemic in character (Artighi et al,1989) and therefore breaking the limits of the system in which action occurs (Melucci 1985). 1.2.1 New Social Movements: What is 'New"? In recent years, the literature on social movements has revealed a great deal of interest among scholars in what is called ‘new social movements’. The concept, however, is as nebulous and volatile as the term social movements. Its origin can be traced to the work of Alain Touraine and the European school, the term denoting new structural conflicts in post-industrial or advanced capitalist societies (Touraine 1981 and 1985, Habermas 1981, Melucci 1989 and 1992), The list in this genre included movements linked to civil liberties and democratic rights, students, women and the environment. These new movements, according totheir exponents, were primarily over symbolic goods - meanings, lifestyles ~ rather than over material. goods ‘Apart from the nature of the demands voiced in such movements, their newness was also attributed to social formations outside or beyond the working class/peasant movements - the subjects of class struggle in classical Marxism. Studies in Europe and elsewhere have shown that the core members of these movements were recruited largely from the middle class, who lived in material conditions that facilitated their relative neglect of ‘material, economic and redistributive demands (see Offe 1985, Eder 1995), ‘The theoretical underpinning for new social movements in the developing countries were, however, more nuanced. In Latin America, a multiplicity of action groups ~ squatter movements and neighbourhood councils, self-help groups and coalitions for the defence of indigenous traditions and regional interests ~ constituted the cote of the new social movements, Often engaged in struggles in opposition to the state and other political and socio-cultural institutions, rather than the economic ruling class, these movements were considered to be the result of the multi-layered structural crises faced by the modern Latin American societies (Laclau 1985, Evers 1985); since they were struggles over meanings as much as over resources, they were judged to be both economic and cultural (Castells 1983, Escobar 1992), As Fiske (1989:10) has argued, these struggles are to be understood as ‘semiotic resistance’ originating in the ‘desire of the subordinate to exert control over the meanings of their lives. 1.2.2 New Social Movements: The Indian Context In the Indian context, the concept ‘new social movement’ has been used mainly to denote the women’s movement emerging in the late 1970s, articulating cultural radicalism; the dalit movement and the adivasi movement for cultural and regional autonomy and identity; environmental action groups resisting development projects and farmers movements of the 1980s demanding remunerative prices for farm output and lower prices for inputs (Omvedt 1993, Brass 1995), The ‘newness’ in them is attributed to their being (@) -polities non-party political formations (Kothari 1984, Seth 1983), outside the realm of institutionalised pai ‘on the one hand and the trade-unions and lower class peasant politics on the other", and (b) carriers of @ new paradigm of social existence and development, ‘redefining politics and articulating altemative forms of governance’ (Sethi 1993). These new social movements are considered to emanate from the structural failure ‘gely practised and controlled by a developmentalist state that has so far exercised domination over knowledge and power (Parajuli 1991), While the modernisation project is viewed as being Eurocentric (Wignaraja 1993) and therefore essentially colonising ( see Shiva 1988, in the context of the ecological as well as the women's movement in India), the post-colonial state is theorised as a hegemonic of the modernisation project I formation, serving the interests and values of the dominant national elite in the process subjugating women, dalits, adivasis, minorities and the poor, and attempting ' to regulate both accumulation and legitimisation as well as capitalism and democracy’ (Parajuli 1991:175). Within this scenario of domination and subordination ‘ew social movements are counter-hegemonic formations resisting domination, albeit in differing forms and degrees, as well as ‘providing some basis for a developmental and democratic alternative to the system as it now works’ (Wignaraja 1993:5). Such movements straddle class borders rather than polarising around them ‘and are therefore similar to their counterparts in the advanced countries.1.3 Conceptualising the Environment Movement The conceptualisation of new social movements in the developing countries as reflecting a developmental crisis, as struggles over resources and meanings and as manifestations of pluralistic paradigms of development and governance is clearly evident in the theorisation of the Indian environment movement Unlike the environment movement in the advanced capitalist world, nature-related conflicts and struggles reflect a strong material basis, emanating from the monopoly of the state over such resources as water, forests and land which serve as resources of subsistence for the majority of the population, While some scholars view such movements primarily as resistance movements geared towards stopping economic activities that destroy the environment and impoverish local communities (Gadgil and Guha 19952), others emphasise their capabilities to redefine the concepts of development and economic values, of technological efficiency and scientific rationality (Shiva 1991:24), There is, however, a unanimity among scholars over the fact that such ‘movements have occurred due to socio-ecological impact of a narrowly conceived development which is based only on short-term commercial criteria of control and exploitation of natural resources and which almost exclusively serves the needs and interests of the rich minority Resource-intensive industrial activities and major development projects are largely considered to be 's. Exploitation of mineral resources, large river valley the sites of environmental struggles and movem projects, mechanised fishing and state controlled commercial forestry ate major arenas which generate resource conflicts and therefore environmental movements (Shiva 1991, Shiva and Bandopadhya 1988, Gadgil and Guha 1995, Sethi 1993). Along side large scale destruction and/or transfer of natural resources, these activities and projects frequently involve displacement of people imposing enormous social and environmental costs and affecting the survival and subsistence portfolio of local communities. In other words, such productive activities plant the seeds of conflict by their very nature, Environmental movements are mediations in these conditions of conflict, Depending on their nature and intensity they could denote a redefinition of usufruct and control rights over the resource in question, an environmental response seeking correctives through legal and policy shifis, or more radically, an ecological reaction, rejecting the dominant development paradigm and seeking to fundamentally alter existing conceptions on and modes of resource use (Sethi 1993). OF the numerous environmental struggles that dot the Indian landscape, the best known and most studied movement is the Chipko Andolan (see Guha 1989, Weber 1987, Shiva 1991). In many ways the CChipko Movement marks a watershed in the Indian environmental movement, It was one of the first struggles Jaunched in the post-independence era that drew world-wide attention to the damaging effects of commercial forestry and logging practices in the foothills of the Himalayas, both on the inhabitants as well as on the wider eco-system of the Garhwal-Kumaon belt in the Uttarakhand region, It took place at a time when not much was known in India and the world over about the significance of environmentally sustainable development. The ‘movement derived its name from the collective action it espoused - the hugging of trees by local people, to prevent the forest officials and contractors from cutting them down.’ It inspired several similar strugeles in other parts of India, the Appiko Chaluvali struggle in the Uttara Kannada district in south India being one of them (Shiva 1991:117). But perhaps most importantly, the Chipko movement succeeded in achieving a fifteen year ban on commercial logging in the region ‘The achievements of movements like the Chipko Andolan have drawn scholarly attention that has probed the nature and character of such movements.* Guha’s study of the Chipko movement locates it as the 4contemporary manifestation of a century old tradition of peoples’ struggles over forest rights (Guha 1988). ‘Although largely historical in orientation, the study explores the contemporary tensions existing among the different ideological and strategic orientations of the groups actively involved in the movement. However, Guha's study is, in some ways, an exception, Studies exploring ecological politics (few in number) tend to focus not so much on specific struggles and movements but on structural conditions/crises which generate them, We discuss the methodological implications for such preference below 1.4 Approaches to Movement Analyses ‘The approaches to the study of social movernents fall broadlly under two categories. The first approach, focuses on macroelevel structural foundations underpinning the movements, usually factors of political economy and/or systemic crisis, It approaches social movements by explaining their links to these structural conditions, causes and influences. The critical point of inquiry is the ‘why’ of the social movement. As the focus remains on the contradictions of the larger system, this approach tends to attribute an emancipatory discourse to the movements valorising their transformation potential (see Salman 1990: 112), The second approach takes as its explanatory domain, the polities of the movement - the interests, mobilisation, relative power relations, role of leadership and organisation as well as issues of strategies and alliances, The accent is con organisational displays and material and ideological resources (on the *how" of the movement), the assumption being that there has always been an autonomous dimension of politics that is not exclusively a reaction or response to structural conditions and crises. This approach is evident in ‘micro-studies’, where the focus is on the events and processes in a particular movement. In this paper, the second approach is clearly discernible. The focus is on the discourse and practices of mobilisation in the NBA - on its actors, engaged in what Laclau and Mauffe (1985) call articulatory practice.” We ca formation are critical issues of inquiry. We dwell on this approach latter in the paper. Yet, it needs reiteration this the ‘movement as an actor’ approach where the movement's practices and the process of identity that the inherently dialogical character of social movements - bringing together systems and actors - presents tus a challenge of maintaining an analytical equilibrium between the two modes of analysis (See Eder 1995:11). Social movements cannot be explained as mere manifestation of an aggregate of people organising resources to fight for their interests or as political reactions to (new) forms of (structural) domination and exploitation. Actors mediate through networks of social relationships (Melucci 1992:243), produce and shape collective identity and unity as well as construct (new) systems of meaning and knowledge (Diani and Eyerman 1992-9). These elements are integral processes in social movement formation and development and therefore demand the indulgence of the scholar. Thus, methodologically speaking, processes, interactions and ‘meanings (apart from structures and actions) are important in movement analysis. While we simply cannot claim to have incorporated all these methodological variables in our analysis, our approach is informed by the rnced to focus on the interactions between different sets of actors and networks of relationships, the processes of resource mobilisation, agency mediation and identity formation and the meanings that get constructed in the ‘movement2.1 The Coming of the Andolan 2.1 The Sardar Sarovar Project: A Brief Overview ‘The protest movement around the SSP on the Narmada river can be said to be a relatively contemporary chapter in a project that spans almost five decades. The idea of harnessing water from the ‘Narmada dates back to the 1940s, when the first technical studies were conducted and sixteen sites identified for irrigation and hydro-electric projects. A terminal dam was proposed and sanctioned in Gora first with FRL. (ull reservoir level) 161 ft and subsequently raised to with FRL 320 ft in 198 headquarters began in 1961 in Kevadia, for which over 5000 people from nearby villages were displaced. The * The construction of project site of the dam was shifted slightly upstream in 1962 to its present site and under the Bhopal agreement of 19637 between the chief ministers of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh it was further raised to FRL 425 f However as the M.P government did not ratify the agreement the matter was referred to a central government committee. The Khosla committee recommended a height of FRL 500 ft which drew sharp reactions from M.P ‘and Maharashtra governments. With negotiations failing, Gujarat formerly registered a complaint under the Inter-state Water Disputes Act in 1968 and a year later the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal was constituted. ‘The Tribunal Award came in 1978 and was binding on all the interested parties (Gujarat, M.P., Maharashtra and Rajasthan), It set the height of the SSP at FRL 455 ft. It also allocated water and hydro-power and distributed costs among the state governments and laid down principles and practices for resettlement and rehabilitation of those to be displaced. ‘The Sardar Sarovar Dam is the terminal dam in the Narmada Valley Development Project master plan that envisages the construction of 30 major dams, 135 medium dams and 3000 minor dams, which together would irrigate 4 to 5 million hectares of agricultural land, provide 2700 MW of hydro-cleetricity and supply water for domestic and industrial use. According to the latest official estimates the SSP alone over the next thirty years, is expected to irrigate 1.8 million hectares of land, supply drinking water to 40 million people and will have an installed capacity of 1450 MW of power, The planned reservoir when filled to its maximum water level will cover 410 s9.kms of land while its main irrigation canal will be approximately 440 kms in length. The project is to submerge 37590 ha of land and affect 245 villages in the reservoir arca with an estimated population of 130,000. While the affected villages in Maharashtra and Gujarat have @ near total adivasi population, in M-P., about 140 villages to be affected lie in the fertile Nimad plains; inhabiting among. others in this arca are class of rich cash-crop farmers with access to irrigation ‘The history of the anti-SSP movement can be divided into three distinct phases.* During the earliest phase, from 1979 to 1984, the protest with regards to the Sardar Sarovar project took several different forms involving different actors. The Nimad plains witnessed the first intense agitation against the Sardar Sarovar Project immediately after the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) presented its final award on August 16th 1979, The affected Nimad villages, largely from the districts of Western Nimad and Dhar, launched the ‘armada Bachao-Nimad Bachao Sangharsh Samiti’ (Save Narmada, Save Nimad Struggle Committee) which ‘gained instant support from the Congress Party, the opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly. Despite the clarification issued by the then chief minister of the state Mr. Virendra Kumar Sakhleja (Janata 6Party), that the MP. government had not accepted the NWDT Award,” the Congress-backed agitation gathered momentum, Several rallies, bandhs and road blocks were organised, mainly in Bhopal, Indore, Badwani and ‘Kukshi during the months of August and September, It needs to be mentioned here that while the agitation was intense in the Nimad plains, the adivasi areas subject {0 submergence, mostly in the Jhabua district were not represented in the struggle, Amidst the agitation, the M.P government issued statements that it would make efforts to discuss the issue of the height of the Navagam Dam (FRL 455 ft), although the Tribunal Award was binding on the four affected states: Gujarat, M.P., Maharashtra and Rajasthan.” Although the first phase of the anti-dam struggle began spontaneously, the mediation of the M.P. Congress party gave it an organisational support, Several state-level functionaries participated in the agitation, Both the student wing and the youth wing of the M.P. Congress also actively participated in the struggle. While the agitation aroused a general fecling of MP. being the loser in the Tribunal Award, the brunt of the struggle in this first phase was directed at renegotiating the height of the Navagam Dam (the name with which the terminal dam was known), in order to save some of the Nimad villages from being submerged. Madhya Pradesh was indeed a loser in many ways. Most of the submergence was to occur in M.P., including fertile agricultural land in the Nimad belt, Moreover, the proposed sites for two M.P. government projects, Harinfal'” and Jalsindhi,"? fell within the submergence area of SSP. The M.P. Congress party, therefore, projected the issue of the Navagam Dam as a conflict between the interests of Gujarat and M.P.'? The agitation soon petcred out, as the Congress party withdrew its support after coming to power in M.P. and elsewhere in the elections of 1980, In the early 1980s, environmentalists and environmental groups were instrumental in initiating a campaign against large dams." These groups had tasted some degree of success in the late 1970s, both in the Chipko movement and in the campaign to save the Silent Valley in Kerala and now took initiatives in research, documentation and raising general awareness on the impact of large dams, With regards to the SSP. Delhi based group, called Kalpavriksh together with the Hindu College Nature Club, conducted a study in the months of July and August 1983 in the Narmada Valley and pointed out some ‘serious inadequacies and distortions in the information base! (Kalpavriksh 1986:4)'* This group was later to take a very active part in the struggle in the valley. In 1983, the World Bank had been approached by ARCH-Vahini - an NGO working ‘on the issues of health and environment in Mangrol, Gujarat - drawing attention to the plight of those to be evicted by the project. That year, the World Bank commissioned Thayer Scudder, an international expert om displacement and resettlement, as part of a mission on the relocation component of the Sardar Sarovar project. ‘Scudder’s report pointing out several inadequacies in the rehabilitation proposals, was widely circulated ‘among international NGOs such as Oxfam and Survival International in UK and the Environmental Defence Fund in USA; they started lobbying with the World Bank even as the latter was negotiating the loan proposal with the Government of India and the states for the $8P,"° These NGO-led activities were later to play a crucial role in shaping the Narmada Bachao Andolan, However it was not until 1984 that the valley witnessed any mass mobilisation of the project affected people, 2.1.2 The Demand for F: Rehabilitation: 1984-1987 On March 8th 1984, the first public demonstration, consisting of fourteen tribal villages in Gujarat and nine tribal villages in Maharashtra, marched to the project headquarters at the Kevadia Colony from Vadagam village in Gujarat demanding a thorough revision of the Gujarat goyernment’s resettlement policyoutlined in its government resolution (GR) of June 11th 1979, to compensate only those with revenue land holding. Although the NWDT did not make any provisions for compensating 'encroachers’ on waste land and forest land, it had at least spelt out the requirement that families and not land-holding should be treated as the compensation unit, In a memorandum submitted by the affected people and their representing NGOs - ARCH- Vahini and Rajpipla Social Service Society - to the government of Gujarat, the demand was put forward for landless, ‘encroachers' and major sons to be treated at par with people holding land titles. ‘The demonstration marked the beginning of a new phase in the struggles in the valley. From 1984 onwards a series of collective actions ensued that involved the local affected population. In Gujarat, the ARCH- Vahini spearheaded the boycotting of project authorities with a ‘rasta roko' to dykes," a writ petition in the Gujarat High Court and later in the Supreme Court of India, and the lop work on the rock fill intensification ofthe international campaign with the support of NGOs abroad. Later the Narmada Asargrasta ‘Samiti (NAS) was formed as a platform for the $000 or so people displaced during the construction of the SSP headquarters back in 1960, In Maharashtra, the demand for better rehabilitation was articulated by activist, groups and NGOs. Activists from SETU,'* an NGO based in Ahmedabad, had initiated work among the adivasi villages helping them to form village level committees.” In April 1986, the Narmada Dharangrasta Samiti (NDS) was formed in Dbulia, a committee comprising of activists from SETU and representatives of the affected villages under the leadership of Medha Patkar.”” In a memorandum submitted to the government of Maharashtra that month, the NDS demanded the release of degraded forest land for the purpose of rehabilitation if large quantities of revenue land was unavailable (cited in ARCH-Vahini 1991), A few months later, Maharashtra witnessed its first major demonstration, in Bombay, organised by a lef-led "Committee of Dam and Project Evictees’ with the slogan, ‘ist rehabilitation then the dam’. Two distinguishing features marked this phase of the struggle. Firstly, demands for better provisions for resettlement and rehabilitation ‘were voiced in no uncertain terms. Secondly, it was forthe first time that tribal villages in both Gujarat and Maharashtra were mobilised In MP. the situation was more fluid, The initial stirrings focused more on the Narmada Sagar Project (NSP) which was to be constructed at Punasa in the Khandwa district in Central M.P., and less on the SSP. This project had been inaugurated by Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India on October 23rd 1984. According to official statistics, the NSP would irrigate a net cropped area of 1,41,000 hectares while submerging 91,348 hectares of land, The project would also generate power with an installed capacity of 1000 MW, The initial response to the NSP of the activist groups and environmentalists was one of total opposition." ‘This response was shaped not only by accumulated experiences with the Tawa and Bargi projects” in M-P., but also by the orientation of social activists and NGOs in the region (central M.P.) towards ‘appropriate technology’.** Inwestern MP., pa icularly in the Jhabua district, several organisations and activist groups had been ‘working among the tribal villages. The Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath was one such organisation. Working with over a hundred villages in the Alirajpur tehsil from which the Sangath draws its membership, it has, since its formation in 1983, launched several struggles against the state forest department over access and control of forest resources. The coming of the SSP affected twenty six villages of the Sangath area, In 1986, the Sangath facilitated a survey conducted by Multiple Action Research Group (MARG), an NGO for research and policy advocacy based in Delhi, in these villages.” The objective of the survey was to find out ‘what kind of rehabilitation the affected people wanted, what rehabilitation they were offered and the extent to which it was 8satisfactory’ (MARG 1986:1)-* Unlike its counterparts in central M.P., the Sangath focused on the problems of displacement and resettlement in the initial years, disseminating information on the likely impact of the SSP, ‘the extent of forest loss, the number of villages facing submergence, resettlement provisions as per the Tribunal award, the World Bank credit agreements and the government resolutions and peoples entitlements as per these provisions, ‘The fuid situation in M.P nowvithstanding, demands for a fair and acceptable rehabilitation package for SSP oustees were voiced by most of the activist groups. The demands voiced at this point of the agitation assume particular significance, since this marked the beginning of the project implementation phase.** Between 1984 and 1987, the loan deal with the Bank had been signed, financial clearance had been received from the Planning Commission, conditional environmental clearance for the project had been granted by the Ministry of Forests and Environment, The conditional environmental clearance accorded to the SSP and NSP in. June 1987 activated a chain reaction, Environmentalists and NGOs outside the valley strongly protested the decision of the government to approve the projects when sufficient studies on the environmental and social impact ofthe project had! not been initiated, and even those started had not yet been completed. In May, just one month earlier, Medha Patkar had written to the EDF, USA., that the environmental clearance to the SSP vas expected despite incomplete studies but that the NDS would intensify its struggle for rehabilitation nonetheless. She also mentioned that she had persuaded NGOs in M.P who were arguing for a “no dam position to mobilise and organise tribals to put up joint rehabilitation demands (Patkar 1987 cited in Patel 1995), Patkar achieved some success in her endeavour. It was at her initiative that the Narmada Ghati Nav Nirman Samiti (NGNS) was revitalised in M.. with the participation of the activists of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath, and together with the Narmada Dharanagrasta Samiti (NDS), it made several demands on resettlement and rehabilitation in 1987. These demands included the right to information on the technical aspects ofthe dam, the extent and schedule of submergence, land availability including amount, place, quality and legal status of the land sclected for compensation; fresh land surveys to include those areas excluded from carlicr surveys, the extension of rehabilitation benefits to those affected by the project headquarters at Kevadia, the canal network in Gujarat and the compensatory afforestation programmes were also made; and assertion of the rights of those affected to settle in their own states as per guidelines laid down by the NWDT award 241.3 The Split in the NGO Movement and the Birth of the Andolan: 1988 On December 23rd 1987, the government of Gujarat announced substantial modifications to its Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) package through government resolutions of December 4th, 14th and 17th 1987, This announcement followed pressure from the NGO movement for R&R in Gujarat, M.P. and ‘Maharashtra and from a series of Bank missions, particularly in April and November/December that year. The major features of the new R&R policies were: (a) landed oustees were cligible to get a minimum of 2 hectares of land of their choice, and the difference between the compensation paid by the government and the market price of 2 hectares of land as per the choice of the displaced was to be borne by the government through ex- gratia payment; (b) cultivators of government waste land and forest land as well as the landless were to be accorded the same benefits as in (a). It needs to mentioned here that the Government of India has no national policy on R&R till date and the approach of states towards relocation has been extremely ad-hoc and inconsistent. Under these circumstances, the government of Gujarat rightly claimed that its R&R policy in SSP was a “revolt onary’ step,‘The policy announcements resulted in the split of the NGO movement that had so far spearheaded the agitation, NGOs in Gujarat, notably the ARCH-Vahini, endorsed the new policies and offered critical support to the government for implementing them, the Vahini claiming that the implementation of the R&R policies required ‘objective, fair and continuous watch dogging’ (ARCH Vahini 1991:14). The NGO movement in Maharashtra and M.P., however, took a completely different turn. In November 1987, in a joint memorandum to the Narmada Control Authority the NGNS (M.P.) and, the NDS (Maharashtra) had put forward a list of thirty eight demands related to rehabilitation, The memorandum had warned that if'a clear decision was not taken on these demands by December 15th, then a movement would be launched to get the demands fulfilled. On December Sth a meeting of NGO activists, 7 and environmental aspects of the Narmada Projects’, and to ‘produce relevant study material on the projects environmentalist, and intellectuals was convened in New Delhi, The meeting was organised to discuss ‘soc related to involuntary resettlement and environmental aspects which have been ignored by the government’ and to “widen the network and to help those groups already working’ (Kochari T., proceedings of the Dee Sth 1987 meeting, IPA New Delhi). Most of the NGOs active in the valley - the NDS, the ARCH-Vahini, the NGNS, as well as NGOs such as Oxfam, Participatory Research in Asia, and Bombay Natural History Society - ‘were represented in the meeting. Although the viability of the project was questioned in the meeting by some participants the consensus was to study in depth the various dimensions of the SSP and to initiate such action plans - research, mobilisation, monitoring, documentation, media exposure and fund raising - so as to keep the “pot boiling’ (ibid), largely governed by the feeling that ‘it would be very difficult (but not impossible) to stop the SSP at that the meeting thus marked the formulation of what was called the Narmada Action Plan, stage’ (Kothari A. correspondence with Mehta A., Sept. 16th 1988), but that a demand fora complete, reliable appraisal ofthe project was justified and needed tobe strongly pursued The December 231d announcement, was not well reczived by the activist groups outside Gujarat Doubts were raised about the government's capabilities and will to implement the poticies,”” as well as the availabilty of the large quantity of land required for rehabilitation, In MP. and in Maharashtra mobilisation work by the activists continued among the affected villages. International NGOs stepped up their campaign against the project: in June 1988, two organisations, the EDF and Friends of the Earth, testified before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Committee on Appropriations, US Senate (EDF 1988) regarding the inadequate environmental impact assessments and cost benefit analysis undertaken by the project authorities as well as the inadequacies in the R&R policies of the government of M.P, and Malwarashtra and the unavailability of quality land for rehabilitation. In July 1988, the Gandhian social worker Baba Amie organised a meeting of social workers and environmentalists, the consequence of which was the adoption of the “Anandwan Declaration against Large Dams’. In August 1988, the NDS and NGNS announced total opposition to the SSP on environmental, social and economic grounds, preferring to “be drowned by the rising water of the dam if the government insists on building the dam, rather than giving tacit approval to these destructive schemes by agreeing to shift” (NDS 1988, press release). Thus was born the slogan Dubenge par Hatenge Nahin! We shall drown, but not move! The rationale for opposing the entire project was, firstly, that proper rchabilitation ofall those to be displaced was impossible since the governments had no real idea of the extent and impact of displacement; secondly, the extremely high environmental costs of the SSP had neither been assessed nor properly accounted for in the cost benefit analysis and the governments had no action plans to undertake mitigative measures in this regard, A radical environmental opposition to the project, later to be known asthe Narmada Bachao Andolan, was being forged 02.2 The Narmada Bachao Andolan: A Chronicle of Activities and Events 2.2.1 The Formative Years ‘The declaration of total opposition to the Sardar Sarovar Project divided the NGO movement for R&R in the valley, The ARCH-Vahini responded to the total opposition by dismissing it as a “lofty ideal’, and demanded to know ‘if those who are making this radical shift will ...really ask the oustees to drown themsclves in the rising water... It called for delinking the issue of rehabilitation from “the battle on the wider front’, It did not ‘share the strategic perceptions of those who are wittingly and unwittingly using the issue of rehabilitation of oustees in the cause of the fight against the dam’ as this was “not responsible activism’ (ARCH-Vahini 1988b:14), The perceptions of the ARCH-Vahini were clearly shaped by the conditions within which it was embedded. Its immediate struggle was for a fair degree of compensation to the Gujarati oustces in the remaining fourteen villages. The Gujarat government's policy announcements were therefore deemed to be a big achievement for the struggle, although the Vahini “fully realised its responsibility to ensure the implementation of the policies’ (Anil Patcl:1996 interview). The next step in the scheme of things for the Vahini should have been to extract similar policies from the governments of M.P. and Maharashtra and to work towards their implementation (ARCH-Vahini 1988a). For the Vahini, the argument ‘rehabilitation is impossible’ was based on the ‘alleged fact that enough land is not available’ and that “this argument of non- availability gets strengthened by taking up positions that oustees should not be asked or encouraged to identify the land they would prefer and that high prices of the land should not be given to the land sellers’ (ARCH- ‘Vahini 1988b:8), However, such criticisms did not deter the NDS and the NGNS in their resolve to oppose the SSP, a resolve based on “definite information and fundamental principles’ (NDS undated:1) According to them ‘even the most preliminary information regarding the number and familics of villages affected, the extent of the areas to be submerged, the number of hamlets likely to be displaced ... was not available with the ‘governments... eave aside the detailed plan for rehabilitation’. It was therefore argued that ‘whatever promises the government may make on paper, the organisations of the oustees have come to the painful conclusion after full discussions, deliberations, studies and investigation that the government will never be in a position to give “and for land” for all 245 project affected villages® (ibid:3-4). In short, the shift in perspective was built upon the premise that an ecologically sustainable rehabilitation of all the oustees was an impossible task. Along with the question of rehabilitation, those opposed to the projects also stressed the wider questions - the cost benefit analysis, the environmental and social costs, the inadequate studies related to seismicity, impact on catchment area, command area and on community health. These wider questions involved the exercise of a democratic right to information with regards to all aspects of the SSP in particular and development projects in general, ‘and the obligation of the government to establish clearly the ‘public interest” of such projects. The total ‘opposition therefore was not just on the question of inadequate R&R measures and impracticable policies but on a wider issue that involved a major sacrifice by some, for an ill-defined , unestablished ‘national good! ‘These issues then became the rallying point for activist groups and organisations opposed to the project. By 1989, the NDS, the NGNS and the Narmada Asargrasta Samiti (NAS) in Gujarat had merged to form the Narmada Bachao Andolan, In the years to come the NBA was to tap a wide range of support from NGOs and activist groups, intellectuals and environmentalists in India and abroadThe announcement of total opposition drew sharp reactions from the government of Gujarat Throughout the 1980s, in conditions of persistent drought, the government had mobilised public support for the SSP by projecting it as the ‘pride of Gujarat’. In this endeavour it received ample support from the industry and farmers’ associations whose interests were linked to the availability of power and irrigation water from the SSP, The anti-dam mobilisation was soon dubbed anti-Gujarat and anti-development, In October 1988, the Gujarat government announced that the dam site, the project headquarters at Kevadia and twelve adjacent villages were subject to the Official Secrets Act, 1923. The district of Bharuch (falling in the ‘command of the project) was also declared a ‘prohibited area’ under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Activists who violated these codes were caned and arrested. Apart from these incidents of state violence, however, the government's handling of the situation focused on mobilising support for the project rather on 7 parties and NGOs, chambers of commerce and farmers’ associations and even Gandhian social activists in Gujarat extended support to the project. repressive measures, Rallies, melas, exhibitions were organised throughout Gujarat during this period: polit More problematic than the government response, the Narmada Bachao Andolan had to face criticisms from groups which it might have expected to be its ‘natural allies’ in the struggle. In Maharashtra, the Committee of Dam and Project Evictees (CDPE), a left outfit and the Shramik Mukti Dal (SMD), found the Andolan’s total opposition couched in rhetoric and romanticism, Omvedt (1993), who is associated with the ‘SMP, outlines the organisation’s position which favoured the building of a wide coalition involving a sizeable section of the Gujarati peasantry, including the project’s proposed ‘beneficiaries’ in the mobilisation process so as to conftont the powerful interests behind the dam, At that point the Andolan could make few claims about its mobilising power: it was more of a coalition of activist groups and NGOs, and in Onnvedt's words, “(had) a romantic image that could capture media attention, but little strategy to gain mass-backing’ (ibid:269). While the dedicated involvement of social workers like Baba Amte at that stage of the movement gave it much needed credibility in the face of concerted opposition, the appeal to sentiments and idealism as a strategy for mobilisation could attract only a handful of middle-class youth and was considered no substitute for the strategy of mass-based politics. Omvedt also mentions that the Shetkari Sangathana, the powerful farmers’ organisation in Maharashtra ignored the issue as it divided the peasantry into losers and beneficiaries. In the Sangathana’s discourse the peasantry is one ‘class’ pitched against the urban-industrial complex that exploits rural India for its gains and the Andolan’s division of the peasantry into rich cash crop farmers of Gujarat versus poor farmers and adivasis in M.P and Maharashtra did not cut much ice for the Sangathana. *” In any case, among the people to be affected by the SSP, were a sizeable section of rich cash crop farmers from the ‘Nimad plains in MP, The only support that the Andotan could get was from the women's movement, in both the Patna and Calicut conferences (ibid:269) 22.2 Against ‘Destructive’ Development: The Making of a Movement A turning point for the anti-SSP struggle was reached on September 28th, with the rally at Harsud, ‘Mooted by Baba Amtc at a mecting of activists at Hemalkasa in April that year, the possibility of a rally was followed up at the NBA meeting in Bombay in May and then at a meeting of representatives of over sixty organisations at Itarsi in August 1989. The rally called for an end to all projects which devastate the ‘environment and destroy people's livelihoods and for the adoption of a socially just and ecologically sustainable pattern of development. It marked the beginning of a political campaign by the NBA that was no longer restricted to the SSP alone, In its new lexicon, the SSP was simply a manifestation of a development 2‘model that derives benefits for a few at the cost of enormous suffering to the affected population and massive overuse and degradation of the surrounding resources. The message of the Harsud Rally was clear. The campaign newsletter of the NBA described the rally in the following words: “People struggling against past or proposed displacement and environmental degradation by massive irrigation and power projects such as Sardar Sarovar and Narmada Sagar, Bhopalpatnam-Inchampalli and Keel Karo, defence projects such as Baliapal, nuclear power projects such as Kaiga, came together in an unprecedented show of strength. (The) defiant message to the politicians and planners was that people are no longer prepared to watch in mute desperation as project after destructive project is heaped on them in the name of development and progress’ (Narmada 1990a:4). The 20,000 who gathered at Harsud including affected people and representatives of NGOs and activist groups from different parts of the country put the Narmada Bachao Andolan at the centre stage of the environment movement in India, The rally received solidarity support from at least a hundred NGOs from ‘abroad and the campaign against SSP received a tremendous boost in the country itself (see ibid:10-11)."" ‘The Harsud rally brought several organisations and groups together on one platform for the first time in India, The direct outcome of the rally was the formation of the Jan Vikas Andolan (Movement for People’s Development), a broad alliance ofa “wide range of movements, organisations and individuals, with its roots in a variety of struggles taking place in the country...” (Narmada 1990b:25). The JVA is a “movement against the development paradigm being practised in post-independence India whereby a narrow clite primarily benefits at the cost of a very large population that continues to be marginalised, displaced, and pauperised along with large scale plundering of our natural resource base, The movement... maintains that what today goes in the name of development is not genuine development but it is in fact socially disruptive, biologically and ‘genctically homogenising and environmentally destructive’ (ibid). The formation of this broad front, in which NBA was the crucial constituent, proved of enormous hielp to the movement in seeking support for its stand of {otal opposition to the SSP. Its focus on a “wider set of issues” instead of only reseitlement and rehabilitation - the non-participatory nature of planning and implementation processes as well as the social and environmental costs of development projects - became a more legitimate set of demands than a year before. But perhaps most importantly, Harsud marked a shift in the strategy of the Andolan. Hitherto, although the Andotan had support from those to be displaced in the valley, its strategy was geared towards appealing to and impressing the citizenry at large, and specifically the middle class intelligentsia. In the post-Harsud phase, the Andolan began to invest substantial resources in building a mass-base in the Narmada valley. 1s: 1990-1993 2.2.3. Mass-mobilisation and Dramatic G: ‘The period between 1990 and 1993 was extremely important in the NBA history as it marked the intensification of the no-dam struggle and resulted in significant achievements for the Andolan. During this pphase the Andolan mobilised significant international support, intensifying its campaign against the World Bank’s support to the project. International support gathered momentum after the testimony of three activists of the Andolan at a special hearing of the U.S Congress Sub-Committee on Natural Resources, Agricultural Resources and Environment." The Sub-committee followed up the hearing by urging the Bank to reconsider its involvement with the SSP. In May 1990, 120 members of the Finnish Parliament wrote to the Bank stating that the Narmada Projects “should not receive any Bank funding before alternatives have been thoroughly considered and before the R&R problems have either been solved or at least re-evaluated’.** In June, the Japanese government that had earlier sanctioned soft loans under OECF (Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund) for turbines for the riverbed power house of the SSP (the Japanese companies Sumitomo, Hitachi and BToshiba had bagged the orders for supply of turbine generators), announced the cancellation of a $150 million loan, in the meeting of Bank donors in Paris, citing the World Bank's assessment of the social and environmental costs as grossly inadequate."* International support continued to grow and the pressure on the Bank intensified: in June 1991, the Bank took the unprecedented step of appointing an Independent Review Mission ‘to assess the implementation of the resettlement and rehabilitation of the population displaced/affected and the amelioration of the environmental impact of all aspects of the projects’ (IRC 1992:359). Although the Andolan was only a couple of years old, this was just the beginning of the gains that it would achieve in this period. In terms of the valley polities, the post-Harsud phase witnessed an intensification of agitation. The organisation I structure of the NBA was established with the formation of a Samanvaya Samiti (Coordinating Committee), which co-ordinated several protest activities - obstructing the construction of bridges across the Narmada, setting up road blacks at strategic points, organising demonstrations and rallies, gherao of officials of the Narmada Control Authority and the World Bank and politicians of different political parties and ‘uprooting stone markers from the proposed submergence areas and dumping them outside the Vidhan Sabha in Bhopal, Dharnas and hunger strikes were the {wo most important tools of protest for the Andolan. These activities in the valley spurred similar reactions from other parts in the country, The Jan Vikas Andolan_ and the support groups of the Andolan, by now swelling in number, played important roles in taking the Narmada ‘message outside the valley. Protests around other projects - Tehri, Subarnarekha, Bargi - were supported. However, the most dramatic of all these activities was the month-long Jan Vikas Sangharsh Yatra (Struggle March for People’s Development) from December 25th, 1990 to January 31st, 1991 Considered to be ‘the first move in the “final phase” of the anti-SSP movement .. its stated objective ‘was to physically stop work on the dam, by offering peaceful safvagraha at the dam site and thereby pressurise the government to comprehensively review the SSP° (Narmada 1991:3). The Sangharsh Yatra was a test case for the Andolan’s support base both in the valley and outside and the participation of more than $000 people in the six day march bolstered its claim of steadily increasing support. The march (by fool) covered a distance of about 200 kms before it was stopped at the M.P. Gujarat border by the Gujarat government. The Sangharsh Yatra pitched camp at the border where it stayed for a month, To pressurise the Gujarat government seven marchers including the Andolan leader Medha Patkar, went on an indefinite hunger strike. However, with the Gujarat government not relenting, the Andotan decided to withdraw from the border twenty two days into the strike, Baba Amte, who had been allowed to camp on the Gujarat side of the border, returned to the Sangharsh Gaon’ on January 30th to declare: “Gandhism has died in Gujarat, and on the day Gandhi died, 1 return to the valley where Gandhi's ideal still lives’ (Narmada 1991:15). On January 31st the Yatra withdrew from the border with a pledge to take the struggle back to the villages under the slogan ‘Hamara Gaon mein Hamara Raj’ (Our Village, Our Rule). Translated into policies and actions, the slogan implied non-cooperation swith an unresponsive government and the development of self-reliant institutions and actions in the villages. ‘The resolve was that villages would henceforth boycott government activities like census operations and ‘oppose all survey work related to R&R. They would also take up reconstruction activities such as soil conservation, irrigation works, health training and adult education, The Andolan newsletter described this as a “gigantic social experiment... (that) can offer crucial insights into exploring alternative systems of governance and development’ (Narmada 1991:24),After the Sangharsh Yatra, the NBA shifted its attention to Manibeli, the first village in Maharashtra to be submerged, and launched a satyagraha from there in the monsoon months of 1991. Groups of Samarpit Dal were formed who would let themselves drown in the rising water of the river. ‘Dubenge par hatenge nahin’ (we will drown but not move) was the new cry of the Andolan, Amidst criticism, that they were promoting collective suicide, the Andolan reasoned that the people in the valley were only honouring their pledge ‘Koi Nahin Hatega Bandh Nahin Banega’ (No one will move, the dam will not be built). Although the rise in the water table was not high enough to engulf the Narmadayi (a hut constructed to house the Samarpit Dal), the Manibeli Satyagraha resulted in impressive press coverage for the Andolan and a wave of ‘solidarity support from different parts of the country and abroad.” In October that year the “Narmada Bachao Andolan led by Medha Patkar and Baba Ami’ received the Right Livelihood Award ‘for their steadfast opposition to the ecologically and socially disastrous Narmada Dams - the largest river development project in the world - and their clear articulation of an alternative water and energy strategy that would benefit both the rural poor and the natural environment’ (RLA 1991 press release).”” That very month the Andolan met the Independent Review Commission and decided to extend to it, all necessary support and co-operation.”* In June 1992, the IRC completed its review of the SSP. In a communication to the World Bank president Lewis Preston the Commission wrote: ‘We think that the Sardar Sarovar Projects as they stand are flawed, that resettlement and rehabilitation of all those displaced by the projects is not possible under prevailing circumstances and that the environmental impacts of the projects have not been properly considered or adequately addressed. Moreover we believe that the Bank shares the responsibility with the borrower for the situation that has developed...If essential data were available, if impacts were known, if basic steps had been taken, it would be possible 10 know what recommendations to make. But we cannot put together a list of recommendations... when in so many areas no adequate measures are being taken on the ground or are even under consideration. Important assumptions upon which the projects are based are questionable or known to be ‘unfounded... Assertions have been substituted for analysis... (T)he wisest course would be for the Bank to step back fromn the Projects and consider them afresh’ (IRC 1992:xii-xxv), The report of the IRC was an important victory for the Andolan; the NBA newsletter termed it a “blockbuster report which Inid bare all the pretences which either the Bank or the Indian authorities had regarding the SSP." The Andolan considered the report an independent validation of its standpoint and a corroboration of “everything that those opposed to the project have been saying’ (Narmada 1992b:9) and demanded that the Bank announce its withdrawal. from the project by July 15th 1992 oF face intensified opposition to its very presence in Indi ‘The 1992 monsoon satyagraha at Manibeli and Vadagam in Gujarat were less dramatic than those of the previous year,” but the Andolan intensified its international campaign by sending representatives to the U.S and Japan to meet with international NGOs and the media, as well as members of the Japanese Diet. In July 1992 the European Parliament passed a resolution on the ‘Narmada Dam’ calling ‘on all member states to urge their executive directors to vote against further World Bank support for the project” and calling “on the World Bank to withdraw from the project, pay compensation to those who have suffered as a result of the SSPs and write off the USS 250 million spent on building the dam if it is not completed” (EP 1992: resolution B3- 1012/92). To ‘prevent and document” state violation of human rights, the Narmada International Human Rights Pane! was formed consisting of fourty three environmental and human rights organisations from sixteen countries." In April that year, Medha Patkar received the 1992 Goldman Environmental Prize “in recognition of outstanding environmental achievement in Asia’. Activities back at home were varied. A national convention was organised by the NBA on ‘Development, Planning and Mega Projects’ the focus of which was 15the Andolan’s critique of development projects: ‘the human rights violation entailed in forcible displacement, the unsustainability of large-scale environmental disruption, the lack of public accountability of decision makers, the absence of any genuine peoples’ participation in development planning and the neo-imperialism of ‘multi-lateral financial agencies’ (NBA 1992)."' In the valley, demonstrations were organised in protest against the visit of the Cox mission from the World Bank, which was sent ‘to re-examine the R&R, environmental and health related aspects in light of the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review Commission’ (WB 1992). The Andolan termed the mission a ‘white washing effort’ on the part of the Bank to blunt the critical remarks of the IRC. There were similar rallies at the World Bank office in Delhi and before the visiting Bank president in Bombay. In January 1993, the tehsil town of Badwani witnessed a 1500 strong all-women’s rally, demonstrating the Andolan’s ability to mobilise women in the submergence zone. On March 29th 1993 the Indian government announced the decision to terminate its contract with the World Bank, just two days before the six-month extension granted by the Bank was to expire. For the Andolan the ‘withdrawal’ of the Bank was a major victory and caused widespread celebrations in the valley. It now pressed for a comprehensive review of the SSP by the Indian Government. When this demand was not met the call was issued for the 1993 Manibeli Satyagraha, By this time, the increase in dam height meant the inevitable submergence of 294 households in eighteen villages in Maharashtra and Gujarat, On June 2nd, Modha Patkar and Deoram Bhai, a resident of Kaparkheda village in Kukshi tehsil (M.P) and an activist of the Andolan, began a hunger strike in Bombay demanding a complete review of the SSP. On the fourteenth day the hunger strikers were arrested, The government promised a review of the project and the hunger strike was called off. On June 29th and 30th a meeting of representatives of the governments of India, M.P, Maharashtra and the Andolan discussed wide ranging issues related to the SSP. However, with no follow-up action forthcoming from the government, the Andolan resumed its the call for the satyagraha at Manibeli and formed. it Samarpit Dal that included Medha Patkar and other activists of the Andolan. As Manibeli and adjacent villages were declared a prohibited area, the Andolan decided that its Samarpit Dal would drown on August 6th, In the face of a state-wide crackdown on Andotan activists, the Samarpit Dal went underground On August 3rd the Ministry of Water Resources, of the Government of India constituted a “five member group” (FMG)* to continue discussions initiated at the end of June 1993 on ‘all issues related to the SSP’. On August 5th, in its preliminary meeting, the FMG, expressed deep concern ‘to hear that the NBA. proposes to proceed with its plan of jal samarpan ... anxious to prevent such an unfortunate occurrence which ‘may have incalculable consequence’ (FMG 1993). It appealed to the NBA to defer their ja! samarpan as it was ‘prepared to give careful consideration to any points or issues that the NBA may wish to raise’ (ibid). The government had finally agreed for a review and the jal samarpan was called off. 2.24 1994-1996: The Impasse Compared to the success achieved by the Andolan in its earlier phases, the events and the activities of the Andolan in the last couple of years indicate a loss of momentum. From a majority of villages in ‘Maharashtra and few in M.P, there has been a steady flow of people to R&R sites with the perception gaining ‘ground among a large section of the population that (despite their struggle) the dam could not be stopped. In MBP, people from the Nimad plains (usually those having large holdings) have even started accepting compensation in cash. The Andolan, as a result has had to face a steady decline in its mass-base which in turnhas affected its political activities in the valley, The events and activities undertaken by the NBA in this period demonstrates its effort to circumvent this problem of an eroding mass-base. ‘The Gujarat government had opposed the formation of the FMG and refused to participate in the ‘group's proceedings. In December 1993, the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as the Narmada Control Authority asked for construction work to be stopped, citing failure to meet conditionalities regarding the environmental work and resettlement. On Februat 2st 1994, the new Congress government in MP., headed by Digvijay Singh, convened an all party mecting, The meeting concluded that in view of the insurmountable problems of resettlement and environmental amelioration measures the height of the dam should be reduced by 19 ft., which would not alter the irrigation and water benefits for Gujarat." The Gujarat government responded to these developments by ordering the closure of the sluice gates of the dam, two days later, marking the beginning of permanent submergence in the valley. In April 1994, the Andolan filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court of India challenging the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Project on ‘social, environmental, technical, economic and financial grounds’ and arguing that the project as conceived was ‘not in the national interest’. The legal battle was justified by stating that ‘it was one of the many strategies that the Andolan has adopted in its strugsle However, conflicting views existed within the Andolan, regarding the efficacy and the rationale of adopting such a strategy. As a consequence the Andolan underplayed this development: compared to all its cartier activities which sought and in most cases received wide publicity, the filing of the writ petition was a low key affair. In July that year, it stepped up its international campaign by issuing the Manibeli Declaration, calling for a moratorium on World Bank funding of large dam projects all over the world. By September Ist, 2152 NGOs in forty three countries had signed the Declaration. “ But in the valley, protest activities were at a very low ebb. The monsoon satyagraha in 1994 had about thinty five activists spread over several villages and were swiftly removed by the administration from the submerging areas (Narmada Samachar 1994 June-July). The fervour of the previous year - the police frantically searching for the Samarpit Dal that had gone underground, ready to drown in the river - was missing, Two major rallies were held, however. One, in Bombay, continued for eighteen days during July; its demands included immediate compensation for those affected by submergence and the public retease of the FMG review report. (Although the FMG had submitted its report that month, an order from the Gujarat High Court had kept the report sealed.) The second, held in Bhopal in November 1994, was to protest against the decision to restart the construction of the dam and the proposal of the Gujarat government to raise its height from $0.3 meters to 110 meters."* The direct consequence of the Bhopal agitation was the formation of two committees: one comprising members of the M.P. Legislative Assembly, to look into the problems of M.P ‘oustees resettled in Gujarat; and the other comprising members of Parliament from MP. headed by Dilip ‘Singh Bhuria to recommend measures to tackle the problems of Scheduled Tribes in the state.” Both the committees recommended that the M.P. government should stall further work on the SSP and seek a reduction in the height of the dam. ‘On December 13th 1994, the Supreme Court ordered the FMG report to be made public, It also asked the state governments 10 submit their responses to the report “uninhibited by any legal implications’. The implications of this order was that the NWDT Award on the Narmada Projects, originally considered final and binding on all the riparian states, could be renegotiated. This enabled the MP. government to submit anaffidavit to the Supreme Court socking a reduction in the height of the Navagam dam, The Supreme Court, in 1 subsequent hearing, asked the FMG to further submit its views on four specific areas - hydrology, height of the dam, resettlement, and environmental aspects. In January 1995 further construction of the dam was stopped at 80.3 metres, due to the opposition of M.P. government. Project authorities in Gujarat however cited resource crunch to be one of the reasons (D.T Buch, personal communication). Im 1995, the monsoon satyagraha was simultaneously resumed in Jalsindhi, M.P., and Domkhedi, “Maharashira, As in the previous year, the satyagraha evoked no great momentum. Manibeli had been a symbol of resistance for the Andolan in the earlier year, but by 1995, the few households that remained in Manibeli as part of the Andolan, were showing signs of battle weariness. Some of them even evinced interest in accepting the rehabilitation package (Himanshu Thakkar, personal communication).* The groundwork required for 1mass. mobilisation was no longer being undertaken; the NBA’s efforts during this period were largely concentrated on the Supreme Court petition which required time and resources, filing of affidavits and alfidavits-in-rejoindcr. However, the proceedings in the Court wore not very favourable for the Andolan either. ‘The hearings were regularly adjourned and the slate governments filed affidavits that were ‘distorted and not factual’ (Narmada Samachar 1996 Feb.). Furthermore the Supreme Court expressed displeasure over the fact that the Andolan had filed a petition in the National Human Rights Commission, while the matter was still before the apex court, Taking strong exception to the duplication of adjudication, the three-memiber bench in one ofthe hearings of the Court observed: “The petitioners are .. enamoured to sce their names (in the media) every day... The initial enthusiasm and the genuine feeling are no more there’ (The Telegraph, 1995, 6th May). Despite the problems that the Andolan was besieged with, it could forge wider alliances and network activi jes. In western MP, the NBA became a part of the Jan Mukti Morcha (Peoples Liberation Alliance) along with the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath in Alirajpur, the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan in Sendhwa and the Ekta Parishad in Dahi. The Morcha’s campaign revolves around liquor trade, the exploitation of the adivasis and a demand for self rule (swaraj) for the adivasis. At a national level, the NBA became a part of the ‘National Alliance for Peoples Movement (NAPM), a new formation different from the Jan Vikas Andolan which was formed in the post-Harsud phase. The NAPM (as is evident from its nomenclature), is a sort of consortium, that includes a number of focal peoples’ movements across the country, functioning under a common minimum programme. Although its inception dates back to 1992, it is only in the last couple of years that the Alliance has gained some credibility and publicity, The rallying call of the Alliance is to “challenge the current paradigm of development, oppose globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation’ and to work towards ‘a just, egalitarian, secular, non-violent and ecologically sustainable society’ (NAPM 1996). The NBA. is one of the leading actors in the Alliance. Few recent political developments around the SSP have also been encouraging for the Andolan, The first is the withdrawal of the ARCH-Vahini from the Gujarat government Committee on Resettlement in June 1995, The Vahini expressed dissatisfaction over the inadequate facilities accorded to large number of project coustees from M.P. who came to resettle in Gujarat. For the Andolan this withdrawal ‘was the realisation of the mistakes of organisations like the Arch Vahini who had made the displacement as a fait accompli (sic) while accepting all the claims of the government on the dam benefits and resettlement’ (Narmada Samachar 1996:9). ‘The change in the ARCH-Vahini’s position is justified thus: ‘the policy promises made to us by the Gujarat government have not been kept. We accept that it was a failure on our part not to have managed to keep up the 1spressure, But we have not changed our fundamental position, We said no dam without proper rehabilitation then, we say it now’ (A. Patel, interview, dt. 14.3.96), Secondly, the incidence of resettled households in Gujarat, ‘returning back’ to their original villages in recent years has bolstered the Andolan’s claim of the impossibility of fair and just resettlement’ of such a large population.®* The NBA has recently started espousing the cause of the resettled population of Gujarat who have formed the ‘Gujarat Narmada Vishthapit Sangharsh Samiti’.®* Finally, the World Bank’s Project Completion Report on the SSP published in March 1995 has also contributed to the revelry, The Report was a ‘lesson learning exercise” for the Bank and acknowledged major performance shortfalls, While maintaining that the “basic rationale for the project is sound’ (p2) the report stated that the Bank had violated its own operational guidelines on R&R and environmental aspects and that the robustness of economic rate of return calculations is clouded by many uncertainties (WB 1995:pp4-5). For the Andolan the report ‘vindicate(d) almost all of the criticisms made by the NBA and the NGOs, criticisms that the Bank (lad) deliberately ignored” (NBA 1995, Letter to the EDs, May 5) The Andolan is faced with a paradoxical situation, On one hand, it has achieved success in temporarily halting the dam. On the other, there has been a dectine in its mass following in the valley. In turn, both these factors have together brought a lull to the activities of the Andolan in the valley. Such has been the loss of political momentum, that for one of its most recent rally held in the valley (in December 1996), the Andolan had to rely on the service of an extremely popular film personality to attract crowd, The turn out in the rally was impressive, but only to sce the film star; the crowd quickly disappeared, the moment the star finished his address. The Andolan was left with a faithful hundred who took the pledge opposing displacement ‘which was the main purpose of the rally (J. Sen, personal communication). ‘The Andolan’s self-description of this phasc, however, is nothing short of a satumalia, In the Andolan’s own words, issued during the monsoon satyagraha of 1996: Now the people of the valley want to assert their right to live in the valley and the satyagraha vill be an expression of this right. This will be done by the launching of many different programmes of construction and development (nav nirman) in the valley. It will be a celebration of living in the valley. Tree planting on a massive scale, housing. bio-gas, soil and water conservation, small irrigation schemes, libraries, schools and so on. This is the people's way of asserting that they are determined to stay in the valley and will work to make this stay better, prosperous and bountiful (NBA 1996, International Update, June). What the Andolan has actually achieved during the satyagraha, is a question that can be pondered over, In itself, the rallying call for nav nirman (new construction’ if literally translated) is a positive development, ‘Movements such as the NBA have been at the receiving end of much criticism that view them as nothing more than ‘holding operations’ (Gadgil and Guha 1995), their ‘alternative’ visions are totally absent at worst and blurred at best, For the NBA, the call for Nav Nirman may be viewed as much-awaited response to such criticisms. Yet, it would come as_no surprise if the Andolan’s call, translated into practice achieved absolutely nothing, Here, one is referring to participatory schemes with regards to housing, soil and water conservation, irrigation and so on. Few crucial questions emerge in this context. Can an ‘alternative development” discourse be imposed on a set of people who live in an acute state of uncertainty in the valley given the reality of displacement that looms large on their heads? Has the Andolan understood the probable dilemmas that confront people in the valley? What explanations can be putforth for a decline in its mass base in the valley,while being so popular in the national and international arena?“ ‘These questions call for self-reflexivity on the part of the Andolan and may beg for radical rethinking on the strategic choices, and reviewing the modes by which organisational and ideological resources are mobilised In the following section, we analyse the organisational resources and strategic initiatives of the ‘Andolan - the internal dynamics of the movement. The practices through which the power is generated to ‘move’ a movement are somewhat like a “black box’. In one sense, they are hidden from public gaze; strategic decision-making processes are almost always closed-door and activists tend to reveal little about dilemmas they face in running the movement, We could call this the “black box syndrome’, Yet, the black box stores significant data that can be interpreted to explain causes and conditions of success and crises. In this section, an attempt is made to interpret movement practices but at places the analysis is may seem impressionistic (the black box syndrome). Its purpose is discern how agency int ‘alternative politics’ operates as well as to induce reflexivity on such operations. 3.1 Analysing Organisational Resources ‘We have stated earlier that, in this paper, we adopt a ‘movement as an actor’ approach. But social ‘movements are not empirical entities with clear cut boundaries. Movement actors could be highly heterogencous, ranging from single individuals to loosely structured grassroots groups to highly organised entities, The multiplicity of actors also entails a multiplicity of relationships (see Diani and Eyerman 1992). Hence, the attribution of any definitive boundary to a movement is nominalist, Of course, the movement's self definition is indicative of its boundary, i.e what it considers to be internal to it, But given its heterogeneous composition, the crucial question of ‘whose definition’ poses analytical problems. It is by observing the ‘movement's practice that one can discern its underlying layers of relationships. Even then, the boundary may still seem volatile and could expand and contract (a) over a period of time (b) during particular activities and events and (c) depending on political opportunity structures or its external environment. Therefore, in approaching the internal dynamics of the movement, a certain degree of archaeology (static and structural), can not be avoided. The movement would need to be some what frozen in time for deconstructing its black bos. What we call the ‘movement as an actor’ approach, attempts to synthesise these problems. Its homogenous implication reflects the importance it accords to the movement's self-definition. But it certainly does not imply a unity of purpose and interests among different actors within the movement. On the contrary, through an archacology of the movement we discern its various layers and the relationships between them that get established in practice. 3.1.1 Organisational Structure: Centralised Protest ‘The organis: jons of the NBA clearly demonstrate a ‘core-periphery” structure. As will be apparent, the unity of purposes and interests is strongest in the core, tending to get more and more diluted as we move towards the movement's periphery. The Andolan consists of a core group, support groups spread across the country and abroad, village level committees, as well as organisations that have been formed around other projects on the Narmada (see Fig-1). In the lexicon of social movement studies, these groups considered together constitute what Tarrow (1988) calls the social movement sector. The core group of the Andolan is a 2»close-knit organisation. The group consists of some fifteen to twenty people, operating from two ‘offices’ situated in Vadodara in Gujarat and Badwani in M.P. The core group, for all practical purposes, takes major decisions related to the resources, strategies and politics of the Andolan, The activists in the core group work full-time for the Andolan: the core group constitutes the Andolan’s leadership. Although the exact composition of the core group has kept changing over time - as old activists move out and new ones come in -a striking feature of this group is that it is almost exclusively composed of middle~ class activists from outside the Narmada valley. With few exceptions, the majority of the members of the core ‘Broup have litle or no grassroots links with the villages in the submergence zone. Most of them operate from the offices at Baroda or Badwani, Their movements and operations are directed towards the wider society outside the valley (both national and global) rather than to the valley itself. The links with the villages in the valley are maintained through a group of local young followers from the affected villages who also double up as ‘office boys” Villagers who frequently visit the Andolan’s offices also serve as links with the core group, (On few occasions meetings are held in villages. Members of the core group are highly educated and some of them are qualified professionals with backgrounds in engineering and social work. The activities of the core group are wide ranging but include liasoning with NGOs and activist groups, national and international; research, documentation and dissemination; lobbying with government departments, international organisations and the media; mobilisation and co-ordination of protest activities in the valley; raising funds, planning and co-ordinating strategies and programmes. ‘The support groups of the Andola back the cause espoused by the Andola human rights, the environment, and alternative development." The range of activities undertaken by the are comprised mainly of activist groups and registered NGOs who One can classify them into three main groups - those with interests in support groups are extremely varied and the degree of support each extends to the core group is also varied. ‘Activities of the support groups generally involve offering logistic support to the NBA in terms of funds and other resources, research, documentation and dissomination as well as lobbying, and also participating directly in the protest activities of the Andolan, In fact, the participation of the support groups in the protest events of the NBA has been so crucial and visible that at times they have tended to overshadow the participation of the affected people in the valley.” The support groups are crucial resources of the Andolan as they serve as links between the struggle against the SSP and other struggles and experiences outside the valley ‘The NBA also has a Coordinating Committee that includes members of the core group, selected ‘members drawn from the support groups as well as some representatives of the project-affected villages. The Coordinating Committee is therefore a wider forum compared to the core group but seems to be largely an advisory body on ideological and strategic issues, Although in the initial years the Committee met regularly, ‘the Frequency of such meetings has gradually declined. ‘The local-level committees constitute small informal groups of local people, who lend logistic support to the Andolan. In the Nimad plains, these groups constitute of largely rich and influential farmers; in the adivasi areas, those influencing community power structures play an important role in forming and running such groups. Their activities involve overseeing participation from villages during demonstrations and rallies ‘as well as mobilising funds for the Andolan. These groups serve a dual purpose. On the one ftand, they form the Andolan’s local moorings, its ‘grassroots’. One the other, they represent local interests in the Andolan. However, villages in which it has representation as such informal groups outnumber those where the Andolan a1